Passive Aggression
by bonusvampirus
Summary: Dana's been having some trouble with the Faceless Old Woman who Passive-Aggressively Lives in Her Home


Title: Passive Aggression  
Summary: Dana's been having some trouble with the Faceless Old Woman who Passive-Aggressively Lives in Her Home  
Rating: T for mentions of violence  
Word Count: 1,098  
Disclaimer: Welcome To Night Vale and all related trademarks belong to Commonplace Books. I do not in any way profit from the use of these trademarks.  
Pairings: None  
Contains: spoilers for 49B  
Warnings: mentions of character death

* * *

Dana started to feel like this was getting out of hand the morning she woke up and found all of her clothes, save the pajamas she was wearing, on the roof.

Well, at least it was the Faceless Old Woman and not Hiram. If Hiram had decided to inconvenience her that morning, there wouldn't have been any clothes left to find. As it was, they lived in California, so the sun had made the clothes nice and warm, but they were still entirely wearable when she and her brother dragged the ladder out and got all of them down. That was good. It was important for a mayor to look professional. Dana, like every single one of her predecessors, really had no idea what she was doing on a day-to-day basis. Calamities arose roughly once every two weeks, and she made split-second decisions and hoped for the best. Sometimes, that split second decision was "We should all hide and hope they leave." Usually, it did work out for the best. Sometimes it didn't, but she tried. Looking professional was one thing she _did_ know how to do, and she did it well.

In most people's opinion, anyway. The clearly non-angelic beings named Erika, particularly the one who was often hanging around the radio station, did not seem to like it when people insulted Dana's hair. After one casualty and two hospitalizations, all criticisms on that particular point had stopped.

Criticisms on other points continued, though. One day, Dana and her mother came home from the Ralphs to find that every object in their home now had a double, and it was impossible to say which object was the original. The message was fairly clear, but they were able to sell the extra objects for a decent sum of money, so they called it a wash.

Other times, there were more subtle annoyances. One day, Dana would discover that every object in her home appeared to be two inches to the left. Another day, the milk that she had just purchased would be sour and there would be cockroaches in the bathtub. One night, she discovered that fifty percent of the light-bulbs in her home had all burnt out at once, for no apparent reason.

It really was time for a talk.

Talking the Faceless Old Woman could be difficult for adults. She preferred to talk to children, unless she was campaigning or taunting you. Initially, Dana had tried just talking to the Faceless Old Woman and hoping for a response. She'd find her shoes glued to the ceiling and she'd just say aloud "Look, I understand that you are upset, and your feelings are valid. However, I do not control the mayoral election, and I have to do what the canyon has called for me to do. I didn't choose this. I was a journalism major. I believe that you want what is best for Night Vale, just like I do. I think that we should be friends, and that together, we can improve this town." The Faceless Old Woman hadn't answered her, but Dana had never the less been briefly hopeful that her words had effected the Faceless Old Woman in some positive way when Dana had found a long write-up of the Faceless Old Woman's budget plan on her computer the next morning, but Dana disagreed with parts of it, so she made a few minor modifications, and she came home that night to find her bed upside down in the back yard.

Hiram was bad enough. He only had two shoulders, but every time Dana passed him on the street, she could feel all five of his heads giving her the cold shoulder. No matter how cheerfully she called out to him, he ignored her. It was a shame, really. Dana knew that he was a nice guy. He was just bitter. She hoped he'd get over it soon, but in the mean time, she took great comfort in the fact that she didn't have to _live_ with him.

The minor annoyances kept piling up, until eventually Dana decided to move her work clothes to her office, and to sleep in her office. She was careful to keep referring to her mother's house as "home" and to return there at least once a day, but she spent most of her time at the office, sleeping on a surprisingly comfortable sofa that one of the old mayors had placed to hide the hole in the floor that led to the Mayoral Apocalypse Shelter. That had worked for about a week and a half, and then things started to get rearranged at the office, and that was far more damaging than having things rearranged at her home was, so she moved back home.

Dana didn't actually know any children. Not well, anyway. There was an eight-year-old and a six-year-old in the house next door, and she'd baby-sat them once or twice, but she couldn't really say what kind of kids they were or what their relationship with the Faceless Old Woman might be like. It seemed like a bit of a long shot.

Soon, though, a plan hatched. She was the mayor! She could speak at the Night Vale Elementary School any time she wanted! It took just a few quick phonecalls to have a meeting arranged, and before she knew it, she was standing in a gymnasium, looking out at several hundred yawning children and giving a speech that mostly consisted of sound-bites about rising above challenges and how "You can become anything you want to be. And you probably will become several things that you never wanted to be, but this is usually okay." At the end of the speech, she cheerfully asked the children to put in a good word for her with the Faceless Old Woman, and walked off the stage as the administrators scratched their heads. After all, it was an entirely elementary school. Surely the Faceless Old Woman would like at least one or two of these children.

She woke up the next day with crayon scribbles on every wall of her bedroom, and sighed.

This was not what she'd expected the most difficult part of being mayor to be.


End file.
